The Heroic Community: Part II, Refusal of the Call

We continue with musings on the heroic community from the previous post.

This section is all about refusing the call to adventure, the call to move forward.

Campbell writes, "Refusal of the summons converts the adventure into its negative. Walled in boredom, hard work, or 'culture,' the subject loses the power of significant affirmative action and becomes a victim to be saved."

Instead of the herald or call to adventure becoming a boon, it becomes a curse, something that gnaws away at the individual's vitality. Campbell sites King Minos, who walls the monstrous Minotaur in a labyrinth, as an example.

"What ever house [the person refusing the call] builds, it will be a house of death: a labyrinth of cyclopean walls to hide from him his Minotaur. All he can do is create new problems for himself and await the gradual approach of his disintegration."

Wow, that's rough, right?

Campbell goes on to say that refusal generally happens because it's "a refusal to give up what one takes to be one's own interest. The future is regarded not in terms of an unremitting series of deaths and births, but as though one's present system of ideals, virtues, goals, and advantages were to be fixed and made secure."

Through this denial, we blindfold ourselves and stumble off the path of our authentic self's choosing, blundering deeper into the wilderness. If only we remove the blindfold, we could perhaps begin to find our way again or at least forge a new path. I find it interesting that refusals often arise because we believe that things will stay the same as they are for all time - as opposed to embracing the true constant of the Multiverse: change.

How many times have we ignored things that we knew to be the right choice for our lives and our direction? Granted, our culture doesn't support people who throw caution to the winds and "follow [their] bliss," but that's part of the adventure, too.

So, how does this all translate into a community experience? I think much of it has to do with forming the heroic community.

If a group of people hears a call to become a community, to begin that journey together, what happens when the group decides it's just too much - too much work, too much heartarche, too impossible, too crazy? Perhaps the call is to join the community, and the refusal comes from each of us as we decided we can't possibly do this. What then do we lose? What nags at us in the middle of the night? Does our longing for community only increase in intensity, leaving us barren emotionally because of our refusal?

I don't think the punishment Campbell mentions is one visited upon us by some malignant deity. Who needs that when we've got natural consequences?

Maybe becoming part of a heroic community is not just about survival, but about thriving. This type of group transforms itself into a place where everyone can follow their dharma, simultaneously creating a collective dharma - a collective spirit where one of the greatest mysteries unfolds:

We are more together than we are apart.

(The first photo is of Arizona's beautiful Superstition Mountains, courtesy of gemland.com. The second is a painting done by Paul Reid.)

The Heroic Community: Part I, A Herald Appears

My dear beloved Donald Engstrom-Reese and I were talking on the phone a couple of weeks ago, and he mentioned a term that really inspired me: the heroic community.

He and I (and others) often discuss what it means to live in community, to develop community, to sustain community, etc., in this time and culture, and when he mentioned this term to me, I thought of Joseph Campbell's incredible book "The Hero With A Thousand Faces," where he maps out the heroic journey as evidenced in cultures' mythic archetypes around the world.

How does this great journey apply to a community? Can the notable stops along the path of the individual be translated into the way of the group? I'm going to be blogging about that for a bit, so here's our first installment.

The Call To Adventure


According to Campbell, this is the first step in the hero's journey - the moment when s/he gets the call to head in a new direction, "ringing up the curtain on a mystery of transfiguration."

It's often here that a "herald" appears, some figure who moves us to our next level of experience.




"The herald's summons may be to live...or, at a later moment of the biography, to die. It may sound the call to some high historical undertaking. Or it may mark the dawn of religious illumination. As apprehended by the mystic, it marks what has been termed 'the awakening of the self'...The familiar life horizon has been outgrown; the old concepts, ideals, and emotional patterns no longer fit; the time for the passing of a threshold is at hand."

Often, the herald figure frightens or disgusts us; it's seen by the larger culture as something hateful, yet, this character ushers us through the first gateway of adventure. Also of note is that if ignored, the herald's signs get bigger and louder, until the need for change can not be denied.

What does all this mean for the heroic community?

First of all, I confess that I don't exactly know what a heroic community is, but I think that's alright. How often does the hero step into the adventure not truly understanding who s/he is? S/he knows a change is needed, and s/he knows the current way of living is no longer nourishing or powerful. So, s/he walks into the breach, discovering the answers along the journey.

The same goes for a group of people who know that the current ways of living are not only ineffectual, they're stifling humanity's potential and the planet at large.

For this burgeoning community, who or what is the herald? What is the figure that calls us to adventure, the next phase?

If not an actual person, perhaps it's a trend, piece of information or current cultural norm that frightens the budding community, like the examples cited below (these are things that goad my own personal need to live in community - not in fear, like some millenial cult, but in recognition that people must create new ways of living in order to change the current paths humanity is walking).

Eco-disaster?
Corporate greed and financial ruin?
Cruelty to our food sources?
The madness of war?
Tyrannical governments?
Children who are succumbing to hatred?
Patriarchy?
Religious fanatiscm?



Let's take an example: the polar bear. Could that be considered the current herald for a culture that is hurtling toward global disaster via global warming? While the polar bear may not frighten us or provoke fear in a traditional sense (although left alone with one in the arctic it should), an underlying part of the fear response it evokes, in this particular context, is that we've fucked things up beyond repair, that we must face our own errors and take responsibility for our actions. This realization is something loathsome in a culture obsessed with consumption and inbalanced desire.

What do you think the heralds are for building a heroic community? Have you and your beloveds heard the call to adventure? What did it sound like, and if you've been ignoring it, how has the call gotten louder?

(The path in the forest photo is from Francis' site. The polar bear photo is from the ever-amazing National Geographic.)

Work It, Mary

Yesterday, I went to one of my favorite sacred sites in Washington - the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception at the Catholic University of America.

Some readers might be wondering, "What the hell is a Queer Witch Priestess doing at a Catholic church?"

First off, it's an absolutely beautiful place, full of '50s-era high art all done in mosaic. Many of the images are not only gorgeous, but full of interesting iconography, including a world's creation that features dinosaurs. Just amazing!

Secondly, I'm big on the Virgin Mother (in fact, right now, I'm listening to Antonio Vivaldi's Vespri per l'Assunzione di Maria Vergine, Vespers for the Assumption of the Virgin Mary - a beautiful piece).

While the Catholic church has certainl caused a whole mess of problems in this world, the sustained veneration of Mary has left goddess worship open to a great many people. From what I hear from various humanoid Mysterious Ones (Juno and Cybele included) is that Mary, the woman, was approahced by various female Mysterious Ones and asked to hold their place in the world until the time was right for them to return more fully to people's hearts and minds (Westerners and those affected by Christian conversion, in particular.) Mary graciously took on this role after her death and continues holding this space to this day. It's my understanding that this is starting to shift and as Cybele said to me yesterday, once this part of Mary's job is done, that gal gets a long-ass vacation.

The National Shrine has chapels all down the sides of the church depicting the different Marys from around the world - Latvia, Korea, Poland (featuring a gorgeous Black Madonna), Guadalupe, etc. They're all so beautiful and the iconography is delightfully pagan. So many of the images depict her surrounded by a very yonic burst of energy. Roses (major goddess flower) and lilies (often associated with the lovely Juno) are frequently part of the art depicting Mary.

The rosary was being prayed while I was there yesterday, and I found myself irritated at some of the prayers, which focus on being saved from hell and being sinners, etc., etc. Yet then I saw Mary sending loving energy to all of the congregants' hearts, energy of healing and deep compassion. She knows that they aren't sinners and hopeless fuck-ups. Through this incredible compassion, she continues to hope that they will come to see themselves as she does - with great love and possibility.

It was an incredible inspiration, and I sat in a pew, quietly singing an Italian song to the Black Madonna (Cybele, in pre-Christian times), adding energy from my own heart to the prayers for healing and love.

Afterwards, I went to Mary's garden, a beautiful respite behind the cathedral and played my Black Madonna drum, working the rhythm of Cybele, a deep, Mother Goddess beat. Mary was there and smiled warmly as a straight couple lolled on each other under a tree - the man prone with his head in the woman's lap as she stroked his hair. The sun was setting, casting golden rays over the scene, and I thought, again, that a Queer Priestess was sending blessings of a Goddess on the love between men and women.

In fact, there were a couple of images in the church that made me wonder about Queer folks' continued work with various female Mysterious Ones. The first was outside and pictured a very, square-jawed "woman" playing a tambourine (on the right - click on the photo to enlarge). Notice that the hair is loose - the very thing condemned by "St." Paul as being the sign of a wanton woman and/or men who were in service to goddesses. The Galli, priestesses of Cybele, played the drum and loosened their hair during wild rituals.

While staring at this image, I heard the Virgin Mother say to me, "See? You're everywhere."

I don't know that the artists intended any of this, but like any good piece of art, we bring ourselves and our experiences to it, seeing our own lives and attributes reflected back to us in ways that resonate with us. I hope I'm not the only Queer one out there to feel this incredible love and hope that our ecstatic gifts have survived vicious persecution and have had the blessing of Mary and so many of the Mysterious Ones.

Blessings of Mary (who as I hear it, was thrilled when a straight university student couple were engaged in a killer blow job on the steps of the cathedral - she wasn't as thrilled when they were caught, however) on all of us.

Inspired Reading

While at the library last week, I happened upon a perfect book for myself:
Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy, by Barbara Ehrenreich. The author has written 14 books and is a frequent contributer for Harper's and The Nation; she's also been a columnist for the New York Times and Time magazine. All of these facts were heartening to me, as are the copious footnotes and bibliography.

The book is all about the history of ecstatic joy/worship/ritual among European folks and how the church, capitalism and other forces eventually squashed these experiences, leading us to a twisted relationship with deep joy.

I started experiencing the necessity of ecstatic joy most intensely in Tuscany this past summer, and over the last year or so, I found that dance was a great way for me (and others) to access these heights of mystical experience.

Not surprisingly, there are damned good reasons for that, including a long and rich history that stretches back to prehistoric times.

I think that many of our modern spiritual traditions, at least here in America, tend to shy away from the ecstatic, and this is certainly true in pagan traditions, where we hope for something different than the standard Judeo-Christian scripted experience.

Concomitantly, there's often a focus on misery and the mea culpa complex. At times when I've brought this up among pagan people, I get a dismissive attitude about not wanting to be "white-lighters" or "fluffy bunnies." Since when did committing to deep joy in a world suffused with pain mean that we're not working hard enough? And, honestly, isn't what we're all working for a world where bliss is part of the every day and not just something experienced in all-too-rare flashes of insight?

Anyone who's interested in this topic might want to check this book out - I'm only half-way through but I'm spellbound for sure.

(The image above is a painting by Leon Brazile Perrault titled "La Tarantella.")

A Trip to Faeryland

Last weekend, I and a dear beloved co-facilitated a workshop all about connecting to the Fae, those magnanimous and beautiful beings of the wild woods, lakes, beaches, deserts, cities, worlds seen and unseen.

The gathering was absolutely magickal, and I can't remember the last time I felt so fulfilled, so contented after a witchy weekend.

At the start of the event, we set up sacred space using a variety of means, including various circle castings, some of which were done with the idea that we would create this space through spoken commitments to our own and others' well being.

Much of the weekend focused on creating gates to Faery, including a very large one that we walked through on Friday night and didn't return from until Sunday late morning.

I and the other facilitator have spent time working gates on our own, recognizing that the need for them in the world isn't just about getting from one realm to another - very often it's a symbol of trust between the worlds, one where we consciously ask the Fae into our world and they allow us into theirs. I've created gates of found objects in the wild, I've drawn them into honey (thereby transferring the world traveling power to the sweet treat), I've drawn them on one of my drums (again, when played it shifts our being into the Faery realm), and other experiments. I have a couple outside near my home that I regularly visit and walk through, spending time in the Faery realm with some regularity.

Spending time in the Faery world for an entire weekend was a wonderful experience and one I hope to repeat. While there, we created ritual art and offerings from the heart, aspected with the Fae, danced, sang, did sacred beading and embroidery, laughed (a lot), cried, and deepened our relationship to these wonderful beings. There were lights shining in the darkness and a rainbow that appeared in a downpour outside the main hall, about 10 feet off the ground.

The Wild Fae have been near and dear to me for many years (since childhood, really), and after this weekend, I began to understand my role with them more and more. Much of what I do is based in the idea of Faery Freedom - my spiritual calling is about freedom and liberation.

The tarantella and the tammorriata are dances of liberation. Yoga is all about liberation. Belly dancing is about freedom. Queer Spirit work is certainly about freedom. All these threads tie together, and I began wondering about the nature of the bodhisattva during the weekend.

These are the beings who have vowed not just to achieve spiritual and everyday liberation for themselves - they have agreed to come back to the world again and again until everyone is freed from cycles of pain, misery, and suffering.

In many ways, this seemed a very Fae-like vow to make, and my mind is whirling with possibilities.

I was deeply moved over the weekend by what all the other priestesses brought to the workshop. I learned a great deal about the nature of Faery and myself through their experiences and willingness to share what they had seen and felt up to this point and what was unfolding during the magick. I am so grateful to everyone there for meeting the magick head on and committing to the work of Faery.

Especially in this twilight time of the year, I would encourage you to spend some time with the Fae. Maybe set up a comfortable spot outside, beautifying it in whatever ways seem right to you (or leaving it as beautiful as it already is), call in your allies, and begin to strike up a conversation - mostly through listening.



As a side note, this is the time of the Navratri, a sacred festival of India that honors the divine feminine through various rituals, including nine days of sacred dance. I learned about this last night at yoga class, and I'm planning on doing sacred dances for this next nine days.

(The first photo is one I took of the dozens of mushrooms at the park site where we held the weekend. There really is something to Faery mushroom magick. Many of us have heard that mushrooms can save the world, and given their ecological powers, it seems like a good bet. The second is an image from the Brian Froud Faery Oracle deck. The third group of mushrooms sprouted up in my absence at a clearing I visit regularly near my home. What a great surprise!)

Faery Freedom

In a couple of days, I'm off to co-facilitate a weekend of Faery magick, focusing on a chance to explore, introduce, and deepen our relationships to the Fae world.

I know that sometimes people get freaked about the Fae - usually out of bad past experiences or the curse of the Precious Moments figurines. Either way, both ends of this Faery-ick spectrum are not something I've had to deal with. However, these perceptions stopped me for a while from fully opening to this spiritual path and magickal energy, but once I got over it (with a nice push from the Faery clan leader I work with, Elavin), I realized how deep and powerful this magick is.

It's all about freedom and not the kind that is without responsibility. For if there isn't some kind of understanding about interconnection, then free-livin' is just rampant selfishness - not a Faery virtue at all.

Faery Freedom has been presented to me as a tree image. Each branch, each twig sails off into the air, reveling in its direction and sense of purpose, but it is ultimately intimately connected to the rest of the organism. If it grows out of balance, it can bring down an entire branch and sicken the whole tree. It's the same with freedom and the individuality that's often preceived to go along with it - we do strike out in various directions that seem like completely unchartered horizons, but without the support of a family, friends, previous explorers, farmers growing food, etc., we wouldn't be going anywhere.

And all to often, our culture values inbalanced and eventually malignant growth more than it does a community-based model.

May we all dare to explore freedom as the faeries do - in conjunction with one another.



(The first image is of the Faery Godmother by Brian Froud, an amazing artist of the Fae. The second is some stock photography.)

Grandmother Spider

Out of the dark roiling fabric of the Multiverse she comes. Multiple, long legs emerging, followed by a series of eyes and a a large beautiful body, full of possibility, full of endless creation, and full of Mystery.

Spiraling strands of will into the blackness, worlds are created, as are particles, atoms, sub-atomic energies, matter, light - creation itself springs from her in filaments, giving a toe-hold to future beings still held deep in her body.



Slowly, light coalseces into stars, which send their energy into the surrounding space, leading to the birth of infinite galaxies and universes, infinite realms, folding onto one another like the endless and only seemingly chaotic web of a Wolf Spider.






Grandmother Spider gives birth to others like her, carrying them on her back as she makes her way through these new hotbeds of creation. One of her many worlds and homes is, of course, Earth. A place of exquisite beauty, she leaves some of her children here, and finds her place on the heaving planet in its early years.


She befriends Gaia, guiding her through her birth and growth, tending her in hours of confusion and rejoicing with her as waters grow in strength. Grandmother Spider sends strands of connection between oceans and moon, creating a love song between these bodies that still resonates today.

Other beings begin to inhabit Gaia, and Grandmother Spider takes an interest in all of them. Along with her progenitor sisters, Grandmother Bear, the Snake Mother, the Great Tree, and others, they become matrons of this planet, taking delight in all of the inhabitants, including the humans who eventually emerge from Primate family.

From Spider Rock in Canyon de Chelley to the deserts of Australia, the jungels of Meso- and South America, to Africa where her son Anansi became one of the trickiest of the tricksters, her spirit can be found.

In our thoughts, which physics has shown to hook up to actual points in space, to the sound of splashing waves, her Web of Creation pulsates with life force. All our experiences and the experiences of this place we call home are the result of this Web, that spirals ever outward, growing, changing, shifting, deepening, and vibrating with color, sound, and power. All we need to do is access it, be mindful that string theory is the modern way of explaining the Web, and realize that interconnection is not just some platonicc new age platitude.

Whisper your dreams to spiders in their webs, send energy out along Multiversal strands, and realize that one day, we all will be consumed by Grandmother Spider and sent on to our next experience.

I first became aware of her presence on a trip to Canyon de Chelley, many years ago, but my first formal moments with her were in a labyrinth at my first ever Reclaiming Witch Camp. Since that time, she has become one of my matrons, and only recently have I begun to understand the ways in which my relationship with her has unfolded - including, of course, as a tarantella priestess.

In many ways, it's hard to discuss where she is most or what she does, because her handiwork is everywhere. Every object, energy, thought, breath of every being is part of the constantly unfolding Web of Creation, and because of the nature of the Web itself, she is omnipresent, feeling and having a connection to absolutely everything.

Despite all of this, she often comes to me in very grounded forms - most always as a large spider. (One of her favorite games is what I call the "Horror Movie Spider Game," where she peers menacingly over entire city blocks, legs perched on various buildings. She never gets tired of this, and honestly neither do I.) Only on very rare occasions has she appeared to me in a human form, and then it was usually a composite of human and spider.

Being a non-human Mysterious One, she sometimes has much different opinions on certain questions or dilemmas. Shortly before going to my first tarantella workshop, she leapt out of a stairwell at me and sank her fangs into my heart. After recovering from the shock, I said, "Can you warn me next time?"

Somewhat incredulous, she responded, "I AM a hunter."

Point taken.

Yet, the love I've experienced from her is overwhelming, and I am ever grateful for her presence and magick in my life.

Grandmother Spider Holds a Special Place in Her Heart for the Following:

A good hunt
Surprises (more specifically, surprising others)
A well-made web
Dances of healing and transformation
Drums
Sacred dancers
Teasing arachnophobes
The month of August in the Northern Hemisphere
Spending time with her Progenitor Sisters
Chasing prey
Dancing by moonlight
Eating her husbands
Playing fetch with dogs
A good circus act (no animals, though)
Clowns
Orchards
The laughter of children (human and otherwise)
"Charlotte's Web"
The Shelob scene in "Lord of the Rings" (sans the killing of Shelob)


Grandmother Spider is a Friend of Many Clans, Including:

The Bear Clan
The Snake Clan
The Tree Clan
The Human Clan
Clan of the Queer Priestesses
The Dog Clan
Clan of the Wild Fae
All Insect Clans
The Crab Clan
The Scorpion Clan
The Wild Grass Clan
The Family of the Tarantati
The Apple Clan
The Pear Clan
The Pecan Clan
The Pine Clan
The Rose Clan

Blessings of the Web upon you.



As with all things related to mystery that I talk about, know that this is how I have experienced it or gotten the info. Nothing is holy writ. In fact, I'd love to hear what others' experiences are with the spider folk, if you have them.